Spotlight 09-29-15, Vol. 77, No. 36

Posted by Richard Perlberg 
on Sep 29, 2015
 
PROGRAM: Today’s program was about Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Livingston County, presented by Executive Director Shari Davis-Schoech. Program sponsor was Fred Arthur.
 
GUESTS: Tom Coates was here from Pittsburgh, helping his parents move; Sylvester Ceci came with a ramp request and stayed for lunch; Cindy Snyder, from Peru, and fiancé James Thompson, from Perth, Australia.
BIRTHDAYS: Dennis Whitney, Tom Janego, Adrienne Knack; spouse’s birthday: Pam McConeghy; Anniversaries: Mark Marker (14 years), Fred Arthur (26 years), Tom and Sharon Zizka (4 years).
WHAT’S THE LIE: Rachel Evers said she had been married 3 times and had two husbands; she climbed a mountain and couldn’t get down; she had to sue a Fortune 500 company over a print modeling dispute. The marriage story was the lie.
Mike Southgate said his wife was once in a James Bond movie; his wife is expecting their third child; this will be his last meeting as a Brighton Rotarian because he’s moving to Frankenmuth. His wife is not expecting PROGRAM: Today’s program was about Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Livingston County, presented by Executive Director Shari Davis-Schoech. Program sponsor was Fred Arthur.
, so that’s the lie; unfortunately, his move from Brighton is the truth.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
  • Rich Millis presented Rotary with a check for 4,600 from Sky Zone.
  • Mike and Jane McManus had a good week with other Rotaries, attending a Chelsea club gathering at the Purple Rose Theater, and taking park in the fund-raiser at the Detroit Zoo.
  • George and Melanie Moses noted that next Tuesday, after Rotary, will be the year’s third and final Adopt-a-Highway clean-up along US-23 between Grand River Avenue and Lee Road.
  • Piet Lindhout passed around a Day of Caring brochure produced by United Way to promote this year’s event which drew 1,700 volunteers. Prominently featured is a photo of the Rotary Raiders.
  • Beth Walker said the SAT practice test last weekend drew 131 and raised more than 4,700 for scholarships.
  • Carol Bullion thanked Rotarians for sponsoring her sun in the Doggie Dash for the Humane Society on Sunday. He was the top fund-raiser.
PROGRAM: Fred Arthur introduced Shari Davis-Schoech, executive director of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Livingston County for the last 23 years. She said the agency started in 1980 with a 500 grant from the then Department of Social Services. Today it serves more than 300 youths who need mentorship in either traditional unsupervised programs or site-based programs such as lunch buddies. She said it is vital to reach youngsters at an early age when many are facing obstacles – single parent, low income – through no fault of their own. She mentioned one elementary school in the county where 43% of the students qualify for the free or reduced-price lunch program.
Fred became part of the program and rightly so as he is a Big Brother. Fred talked about how his “little brother” is named Jake and is almost 15 years old and has lived in three different foster homes. Fred admits that he was nervous about taking on the role but it has been a great time. He’s committed to meet with Jake about two to four times a month. And they do fun stuff like movies, scuba lessons, talking about cars, and later this fall they will go to a Notre Dame football game. “It’s like the coolest job ever. I just get to do fun stuff,” said Fred.
Big Brothers Big Sisters gets about 30 percent of its funding from United Way but must raise the rest itself. It will have a fund-raising auction in October at Oak Pointe. It also has the annual Bowl for Kids fund-raiser that always has a team from Brighton Rotary. Picking up on a theme that 5 bucks can help, Rotary passed the can and raised 372 dollars.
50-50: There were 935 dollars in the pot, but Scott Griffith, Bill Anderson and Frank Mancuso all failed to find that elusive ace of spades.